Sell Everything and Distribute the Money to the Poor

Strategy? Discipleship? Universal command? What's the point?

The goal of discipleship is indeed to shape all we do by Jesus’ teachings and example. This is very clearly true for individuals who want to follow him. And it’s likely just as clear for the group who is the Church. Then it follows that local expressions (churches) of the Church would follow suit.

…but what about general society? What can we expect of society in terms of looking like Jesus? How much effort should Christians and the Church at large expend in making society, a nation, a town, a neighborhood, etc. in looking like the Kingdom from the outside in? Of course, the people of God have always been called to be a light in all creation, speaking a prophetic voice in the world.

But we who live today tend to have a more pragmatic bent toward change. Is this…Christian?

These are questions larger than what is dealt with in just today’s passage, but let’s consider the certain ruler’s conversation with Jesus with these questions in mind.

The instructions from Jesus were directed to an individual - Sell everything you own and distribute the money to the poor. This is set decidedly in a conversation between Jesus and someone seeking to follow the will of God. How universal the instructions are for just anyone is up for consideration.

After the conversation (and the man’s sad departure), Jesus expands it a bit to general statements about wealth. It’s hard to enter the Kingdom with wealth. Please be careful not to make this only about the point of death and “getting to heaven.” While it may seem like the rich man’s initial question was about the future heaven (“eternal life”) What Jesus is talking about here is a much larger conversation. (Remember, it was just two days ago he told us the Kingdom is here and now and everywhere.)

The word “eternal” in the phrase eternal life should not be understood primarily as “without beginning and without end,” a notion that comes more from modern thinking than from the biblical imagination. In the language of scripture, the Greek word aiōnios doesn’t simply describe something endless in duration, but rather something that belongs to the age to come, which is the life of God’s reign. Within the Jewish world of Jesus’ day, this phrase pointed not to a timeline but to a kind of life, the life of God’s kingdom breaking into the present.

So when Jesus speaks of “eternal life,” he isn’t just promising escape from damnation or life after death. He’s revealing a life that is holistic, good, true, and beautiful. It’s a life already available now, marked by participation in God’s own reality. Eternal life is not merely life that never ends; it’s life that never runs out of meaning, because it’s rooted in the fullness of God’s love and presence.

In this sense, the burden of wealth isn’t that it’s impossible to take possessions through a gate into an eternal heaven after you die, but that it’s difficult to participate in God’s Kingdom here and now.

What we possess possesses us.

So it’s harder to pay attention to what God does when we have so much of our own stuff to pay attention to. Honestly, the notion - mo money, mo problems - is not far from this truth. (By the way, don’t forget the possibility that what is camel is actually rope.)

So Jesus’ instructions are about current discipleship for the rich man. And their execution is hard, indeed.

But not impossible. For an individual.

As for trying to apply this to society…man…much harder even, indeed.

We have to ask ourselves the question: is the salvation and redemption of Christ for for institutions and systems? …political persuasions and platforms? Put differently: does God redeem systems?

…or the people living within them?

Luke 18:18-30

A certain ruler asked Jesus, “Good Teacher, what must I do to obtain eternal life?”

Jesus replied, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except the one God. You know the commandments: Don’t commit adultery. Don’t murder. Don’t steal. Don’t give false testimony. Honor your father and mother.”

Then the ruler said, “I’ve kept all of these things since I was a boy.”

When Jesus heard this, he said, “There’s one more thing. Sell everything you own and distribute the money to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me.” When he heard these words, the man became sad because he was extremely rich.

When Jesus saw this, he said, “It’s very hard for the wealthy to enter God’s kingdom! It’s easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter God’s kingdom.”

Those who heard this said, “Then who can be saved?”

Jesus replied, “What is impossible for humans is possible for God.”

Peter said, “Look, we left everything we own and followed you.”

Jesus said to them, “I assure you that anyone who has left house, husband, wife, brothers, sisters, parents, or children because of God’s kingdom will receive many times more in this age and eternal life in the coming age.”

Psalm 62:1-2, 10b

Only in God do I find rest; my salvation comes from him.
Only God is my rock and my salvation—my stronghold!—I won’t be shaken anymore.

When wealth bears fruit, don’t set your heart on it.

Prayer

God,

For real, I’m in a position in life in which it really, truly, honestly, and pragmatically feels like more money would make life easier. I’m just being honest.

I imagine that almost 100% of humanity could identify with my previous sentence, whether one has nothing or almost everything. (I suppose that’s how society is where it’s currently at - that even those very few people who have more than billions of others are still seeking to accumulate more…Come, Lord Jesus, come.)

But back to me…I want to confess that feeling - that having more would make things easier. Easier for the ten children in my care, be they biological, adopted, or foster kids. Easier for my parents, who have anxieties related to it all. Easier for my wife, who somehow seems to spend more than 24 hours each day cleaning and doing laundry and comforting all ten of those kids and putting up with my whining…all at once! (Man…what a housecleaner could do for her!)

But this is not discipleship. And I do have faith that all we need is you. So help me, God. And you have. I’m mostly very okay, satisfied, and even joyfully pleased with my life. And I’m so thankful.

But I’m just being honest.

By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.